The Thing: Reformed
by Anubyte
Summary: The dog from the Swedish base was not the only one that escaped. There was another, and it had chosen a different place to survive and expand. It will take over and reek havoc on man, but it will find something new there. Its not on top of the food chain.
1. Prologue

PROLOUGUE

"_We have escaped_," they said. They ran as fast as this form could take them across the barren wasteland of snow and ice. They stopped suddenly creating a cloud of dusty snow. They had heard something.

They sprinted to a large depression in field of white powder and slunk up to the edge. They all made a decision and told those that had become this form's neck and head to raise themselves above the edge of the depression. Those that provided the vision of this form looked around the wide expanse and could not find the source of what they had heard.

Together they made another decision and slowly their sight of the world around began to shift and widen. Then their sight became clearer and the distance began to shrink.

There! They now saw it. A small black dot moving in the sky. They focused and the dot became closer with out being closer. Its details became clearer with out changing. It was a creation of the forms of this world's prey. They called it a helicopter.

They had absorbed all of the knowledge of the prey back at the base. Those forms that were called Man had fought them viciously and in the end had decided to destroy themselves as well as their predators. They then chose to assume this form, known as Dog on this world, to escape the destruction of the base. These men had found their ultimate weakness. Fire…how they hated it. It was formless, void of any sustenance or information sources. It was a force of destruction, nothing else. It only consumed and fought ferociously for survival. How ironic that they were so similar to it.

They focused more and saw a man leaning outside of the helicopter holding what they had learned was a weapon of the form man, a rifle. The man was firing downward to the ground.

They used their newly formed eyes to search for what the man was attacking. The others…they had survived as well. They also had chosen this form for escape, but man was smart and saw through their attempts to hide themselves to see his enemy. The rifle would not stop all of the others, but they knew that man had other weapons at its disposal. Some of the others would be lost, but not all.

No matter, they had survived and there was nothing left out here to keep them from doing so. They turned away after the helicopter had gone too far even for the powerful vision they had chosen to use.

After returning the eyes of this form back to what was normally found on it, they began again to run.

Although they could stay for long periods of time out in this below freezing weather, too much time would force them into hibernation. Yes, they could simply chose to let themselves freeze and wait for more contact from these men, but they had decided against that, for now they knew that it was unlikely that any more forms of this world would ever find them again.

So they ran on. Some of them had information that they had absorbed from some of the men back at the base of far larger and more heavily populated bases on this continent. They had even gained the knowledge on how to get there. Though they worried that they would freeze before they could reach their destination, their hunger for the unique flavors of this world were great, it would drive them to reach their goal.

They had chosen the place where they would find sustenance and possibly a way to build something to get off this world or at least spread to the areas of this one where the prey were plenty and it would be easier to hide and grow. They had learned that this place had a larger concentration of man and dog and a greater array of equipment that they would put to good use. There, they would be safe to begin their work anew.

They believed man was to be dangerous, and possessed a vicious will to survive, but they were inferior forms and were weak when ignorant of a lurking predator.

This new place would be theirs, and soon. The absorbed forms of man at the last place had known it as McMurdo.

Forcefully two long tubes punched through the skin of what would be mistaken for a dog. From the tubes grew long leathery flaps which attached themselves to vein like tissue sliding out of the back of the dog.

The dog then ran and using its new limbs jumped into the air. The new wings beat at the air mercilessly as the creature that could be mistaken for a dog moved off towards its destination.


	2. McMurdo

Five days later a man rolled back and forth in his bunk. He was becoming increasingly irritated at the noise coming from outside. "What the fuck is going on?" he muttered to himself. He had had enough. He rolled out of bed, groaning and then yelped as his bare feet touched the cold floor.

Throwing on his slippers he walked over to the portable heater and turned the knob to high heat, shivering now that he had removed himself from underneath his warm blankets.

He approached the window of his dorm and looked out towards the helipad farm. "What the hell? Where are they all going? He thought out loud.

He watched as several of the new military transport helicopters, after being mounted by heavily armed soldiers, lift off and head south. His noticed that two of them had weapons pods on them and machine guns poking out the sides.

"_What the hell? Are we at war?" _He couldn't remember anything from the news briefings that would suggest such a thing being possible. He wondered if the Russians had finally crossed the line or had finally made their move. There were treaties that were supposed to stop such a thing from spreading to Antarctica, but that didn't make him feel any safer. If that treaty was so widely respected then why did this base carry the arsenal that it did.

He shook his thoughts away and hurried over to the intercom. "Hey Shields you there?" He asked.

After a few seconds a voice belonging to Jason Shields responded, "Yeah, what's up?"

"You know what the hell going on out there?" The man asked.

"Yeah, like they would tell my ass John. All I know is someone on the continent put out a distress signal. I'm guessing Colonel Klink and Sergeant Schultz got a chance to go get them some glory," Shields replied.

"Yeah, no shit huh?" John said with a laugh, "Who knew they would get their chance in a place like this."

Listen, I am going to get dressed and go try and find out more. I'll let you know what's up if I find out anything," John offered.

"What you wearing now big boy? You necked?" Shields voice asked seductively.

"Fucking queer," John retorted and then cut the intercom off.

He walked over to his wall locker and start dressing himself in a heavy wool dark blue sweater and a pair of jeans which he pulled over his thermal underwear. After pulling some socks on he got into his work boots and walked towards the door to the hallway outside his room.

The hallway was a bit colder then his room but not by much and his attire kept him comfortable. He began the 3 minute trip to the radio room where his friend Bob Walters, the Communications Tech was working.

As he left the hallway and entered the main hallway linking the buildings together he stopped to enjoy a view out of the large bay window. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked out over observation hill. Now that it was winter, all he could see was darkness except for the lights strung about on top of the large hill. The orange lighting from the rest of the base did little more to brighten up the area. The whole base was awash with a dull orange glow.

Just as he was about to move on, he caught something big moving near one of the lamp posts. At first he thought a large bird or something but that was impossible as there were no large birds here. And it looked like more of a dog shape, but he could have sworn that it was in the air.

The shape had disappeared very quickly and although he kept looking he could not see anything else. One of the dogs must have gotten loose and made it way on top one of those shacks he figured. He knew that it was unlikely but what other reasoning would explain the shadow he had seen. Well he could be losing it. He shook off that thought and continued on to his destination.

As he approached the ComTech room he began to hear Jimmy Hendrix floating out of it. Flashing a smile and shaking his head he slowed himself down and began to sneak up to the open doorway. Peeking past the door frame he looked into the room and saw Bob sitting at his desk and strumming an air guitar like a mad man.

John slowly crept up behind the man as the song entered into a faster tempo guitar solo. As the song finished and the last chord hung in the air, Bob had leaned backward in his chair with his eyes tightly closed and his hands spread wide out mimicking the last guitar note, John leaned forward and yelled, "WHAT THE FUCK!?!"

"Holy….ahhhhh," Bob cried out and fell backwards with the chair, arms pin wheeling, hitting the floor with a loud thump. "Holy fucking shit," he yelled and as he saw John there with a big shit eating grin on his face he continued his profanity further, John!?, you asshole, what the hell is your fucking problem?" Then Bob's tone softened and he started laughing. "You scared the shit out of me," he said.

"Well, that was the plan, John replied with a laugh, you looked dumb as shit through out that whole process. I just wish I had a camcorder."

"Eat me," Bob retorted. "What are you doing here anyway, isn't this usually your sleep time?"

"Yeah, but the military hightailing it out of here woke me up," John answered. "So spill it, what happened?"

"You know that I don't run the TacNet comms John…," Bob started.

"Oh cut it out numb nuts, I know you listen in on it anyway, just tell what their doing will ya?" John interrupted.

After a short moment of silence Bob spoke, "Fine, fine, apparently they got some kind of distress call from some big fancy corporation that has their own research base here."

"Really? Who?"

"I didn't catch the name; I had to turn down the music. Anyway, the guy sounded real nervous and at points he was practically hysterical," Bob began again.

John's eyes narrowed as he sat down on another chair listening intently.

Bob continued, "The guy starts saying that the company had recorded sudden and large seismic events coming from the sector where we got Outpost 31. Most of the rest is strange and I missed bits as the equipment was fading in and out from the storm."

"Wait a minute, isn't 31 where Macready is stationed?" John asked.

"Yeah, yeah I think so," Bob answered, well apparently the company also has their own private Para-military security force, and when they couldn't raise 31 on the radio they sent two units out to investigate what was wrong. The second team went to another base that some foreigners run to check on them as well. I think he said Norway or something."

"Yeah I heard about them, they haven't been here too long," John said.

"Well from what I could make sense of the rest, the two outposts were demolished and the teams found some weird shit there.

John's eyes widened, "No shit? Any survivors?"

"They didn't say. The guy on the radio only said that they had found a few dead and then they lost contact with one of the teams. The guy then started telling them crazy shit like no one was who they are and that they were under heavy attack. The security guys went nuts and started shooting up everyone else, and I shit you not I thought I did hear some gun shots in the back ground. Then guy started getting hysterical saying shit like I can hear them in the vents and at the doors, how he wasn't supposed to leak this information, and asking the Army to please send reinforcements," Bob stopped talking.

"Well…then what?" John begged for more information.

"What, that was it. The radio just made a loud screeching sound and then went dead," Bob finished.

"Well fuck me, no wonder they took off loaded for bear," John exclaimed.

"Yeah well that's there, were here."

"You don't seem too worried about it." John stated.

"Shit man for all we know the dude has lost it and tore up the radio equipment. Let the Army guys handle it, that's their thing," Bob stated matter of fact.

"True, but lets just hope that's all it is. We don't need them bringing any of that so called weird shit back with them. Who knows what kind of stuff those companies do here with no government supervision. Not to mention that I would like to know if Macready is ok," John responded.

"Yeah, I would too, I'll keep my ears open," Bob offered.

John thanked him and shortly after walked out of the room. He felt strange. He felt like something heavy was weighing on his mind and couldn't shake it. He remembered the feeling though. This is how he would feel sometimes when he flew Gunships back in Vietnam. When he started a mission and he felt like this, something had always gone wrong. They would lose a bird or come under heavy fire or in one case he was shot down and had to fight his way back to a U.S. patrol. That was when the feeling was the strongest he had ever felt, until now.

Remembering that weird shadow earlier did nothing to ease his mind. Something was wrong and it was happening right now. He walked off to the cafeteria area feeling very troubled.

**A/N: The story begins. Please leave some reviews if you would. Anonymous reviews are welcome too. Please check out my other story the Soulless under Dawn of the Dead. A new chapter will be coming soon for that story as well as this one. Thanks for reading.**


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